A/N: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Here's two chapters as way of apology. I have no excuses, but I'm sorry.

I'm glad so many of you are enjoying the story, and I am also grateful to the person who has provided me with some healthy criticism. I'm going to get more descriptive, which is good because it will flesh out the characters for a bit, bad for those of you who are looking for a fast and painless resolution- it's going to be awhile before this ends. I'm not even promising you a happy ending, or an angst-ridden conclusion.

And yes, I am aware that Charles William is looking a lot like Erik, and while I don't mind that, because I enjoy writing how Erik could have turned out, I'm not interested in re-writing Kay, so I'm going to be working on that.

Raoul

It's a quarter to five in the afternoon. Charles should be coming home within the hour. I need more time, and I haven't got it.

For all my money, wealth, popularity, I've got the worst sense of timing of anyone I know. Years too early for Christine, then, finally reunited, months too late. I refused to let her go back, broke that promise and let her go too early, and arrived hours too late, and then married her a month too late and lost her too early.

And even then I was foolish enough to believe it was all over, and then of course found out that the truth is quite the opposite, and I have no idea what to do now.

I'm afraid of the boy, though I love him. He's too quick, too smart, and, of late, too angry. I thought that if Charles did his best, if I helped him, that perhaps my grandson would be saved the fate his grandfather suffered, but I'm starting to see that it's far less nurture and a lot more of nature's cruel hand, pushed along by society to a terrifying apex. We gave him a few good years, but how much time do we have left? He already knows too much.

Once again, I find myself wondering about Erik's parents. Christine told me little about them, and I don't think she knew much herself. I know his father died before he was born, and I've seen his picture. I used to have that likeness, I picked it up off the floor and pocketed it for some reason, but I have no idea where it is now.

I don't need it, of course. If I ever needed a lesson in the genealogy of the phantom of the opera, as it were, I just need to look at my beautiful son and know why Erik's mother was so infatuated.

I know Erik did not get along with his mother, and while my understanding of the situation ends there, I can certainly sympathize with her plight- and Charles William is well-behaved, for the most part! I have no idea what forces shaped young Erik's life, but I'm doing my best to blindly make sure they're not repeated.

I promised Christine I would take her back before our wedding, and then I broke that promise, and the result of my foolishness has made an indelible impression on the rest of my years. I love Charles, of course, but I have to wonder how it all might have been different.

God forgive me, I have to wonder if somehow, his very existence is what killed his mother. It's foolishness, I know, but she was so healthy, if fragile, before, and after that night, nothing was ever the same.

We rarely spoke of it. She never came out and told me that Charles was Erik's son, but came close enough to it one night that I understood her intentions.

It was a warm evening, and the windows were open. Christine was in bed, which was usual for her at that time. It would be a matter of weeks before she died, but I didn't know that then. I was sitting beside her, holding her hand, when Charles came up in discussion.

"Did you get a chance to hear his new song?" I asked her. I never really brought up Charles' accomplishments to her, as it toed the line between fact and the denial I had manufactured for myself, a thin façade that cracked often enough on its own, without any sort of intervention on my part.

"No," she said tiredly. Her voice had remained beautiful, but it had been more than a year since she had sung anything. She was too weak, and though it was still pretty, her voice was nothing compared to its splendor under Erik's tutelage. It frustrated her to no end, which had physically debilitating side effects, and so eventually, she stopped asking Charles to play the piano for her. He didn't understand, of course. He thought she had a beautiful voice. She did, but he had nothing with which to compare it. However, her speaking voice was still perfectly modulated, feminine and pleasant to the ear, and I loved to hear her speak.

"Well, tomorrow, if you're up to it, you must come down and listen," I said. "He wrote it for you." Indeed he had, describing it as a birthday present, though her birthday was months away. I think he understood more than we told him about the situation, and knew that the odds were she would not be around to celebrate another such anniversary. The song was hauntingly beautiful.

"I'd like that," she said. After a moment, she looked at me with intensity in her eyes I rarely saw anymore. "He's really very talented, isn't he?"

"Well, of course," I said, hoping to keep the conversation on an even keel. "His mother gave it to him honestly enough."

"Yes, that's what he says," she murmured. "He loves you, you know."

"Yes," I said. "He loves you, too."

"But he's afraid of me," Christine said, and probably rightly so. Charles loved his mother, but she doted on him so fiercely, knowing he was the only child she'd ever have, that by necessity he drew closer to me. "He loves you- you are his father. You're the only father he'll ever know. Promise me that you'll take care of him."

"My dear," I said, not missing the subtle suggestion that there were other, unknown fathers, "The boy is going to be an adult before we even know it. He's growing up so well."

"Promise me that you'll take care of him," she demanded. "Promise me that when I die, he won't be any more upset than he has to be."

I promised her that, and understood that she was asking me to keep my suspicious to myself. I looked at her pale, gaunt frame that seemed to be lost within the bed linens and saw the fear and pain in her eyes. She knew what had happened, and she knew what it was doing to me. Love of her life or not, she knew me. And I'd like to think she came to love me. I know I never stopped loving her, even when I knew, even when I understood that this ghost would have more of her than I could.

But he didn't have what he really wanted, I consoled myself, staring at the ceiling and counting the minutes until my son would walk through the door, full of news about his trip, and until the time when I would have to all but shatter his memories. Erik may have had her heart, he may have had her body, and he may have had her child. But I was the one who got to spend years by her side, caring for her, loving her. I knew it was all he'd wanted. It was almost all I'd wanted, and I got to have that. For that reason, I could never be angry with her.

Christine understood what I was going through and knew what it could do to Charles. And like she always had done, she tried to keep everyone happy, even when the two sides were so jarringly in conflict that someone always wound up hurt. I know she didn't do it on purpose, but that woman, that frail bird of a woman, had managed to put a new spin on my life, and years after he death, was still managing to help twist the plot.

When she died, I found her journal, and one day, when the pain wasn't quite so sharp and I had a few hours to myself, I read it. It was one she started just after Charles turned five years old, and while so much of it is about the boy wonder that was – is – our (her) son, the truth was revealed quite plainly.

And, of course, I have her old journal, the one she started just before I met her that she rather abruptly stopped keeping just before our wedding. I've got all the background story, all I need to tell the true tale of Le Fantome, and I'm terrified.

I love Charles. I love Christine. But I can't help but think that if I had only kept my promise to her, only gone back with her that day, instead of sending her alone, I'd be living out my days in abject bliss, perhaps with my wife at my side, perhaps with a passel of children. Who knows what not having his child would have done for her?

Who knows what would have happened if I hadn't forgotten her for so many years in the first place?

All I know is the one time I broke a promise to the woman I loved, the ramifications spread over so many years that I still can't see their end.

I don't know what's going to happen when I break another one today, but I hope she can forgive me.